Empty Space and Empty Home, but My Heart is Still Full
by luvsanime02
Summary: Steve thinks that his apartment is just fine like it is, but the others disagree.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Marvel comics or characters or movies, and am making no money off of this fic.

**AN: **Written for the October 17th Spooktober prompt: decorating.

########

**Empty Space and Empty Home, but My Heart is Still Full** by luvsanime02

########

"When are you going to decorate your place?" Natasha asks him out of the blue.

Steve resists the urge to sigh, well aware that everyone else in the room is paying more attention to their conversation than what would be considered normal. He wishes that they wouldn't talk about him before a meeting, and then designate a person to 'handle him'. It's usually Natasha, too.

For one thing, it's always incredibly obvious when they're doing this, and the fact that they think Steve doesn't notice when he enters a room and everyone's attention is suddenly on him - no matter what they're actually looking at - is insulting.

For another, if everyone's going to butt into the conversation sooner or later, then why do they bother discussing who's going to talk to him beforehand?

"Yeah, Cap," Stark says, proving Steve right. "What's up with that? Going for an austere look? I could recommend Pottery Barn, if that's what you're going for. Lots of rustic-looking furniture without the whole 'I lived through the Depression and never felt like leaving' thing that you currently have going on. You could-"

"My place is fine," Steve interrupts, because he recognizes the signs in Stark that he hasn't slept in a few days and is subsisting on caffeine only. In that sort of manic state, the only way to get a word in edgewise with Tony Stark is to talk right over him.

Sure enough, Stark makes a derisive noise under his breath but his attention is already drifting back to his latest project. He'll switch back to snarking at Steve in a few minutes, bouncing back and forth exactly like someone who has spent way too much time awake lately.

(Steve ignores the ache in his chest from Stark's remark about him never leaving the past. It hits too close to the truth for comfort.)

"No, it isn't," Natasha refutes. "You don't have any decorations. And I mean _nothing_, Steve."

Steve shrugs, because that's true. He just… doesn't see the point, really. And despite what Stark apparently thinks, it has nothing to do with Steve growing up during the '30s. His family home was decorated. Even the apartments he shared with Bucky had little decorations here and there. Things from Steve's old place that he lived in with his mom before she passed on. Things that Bucky's mom or sisters made for them.

Things Steve has lost and will never get back, just like the rest of his life.

He shouldn't think like that. Steve has a life here, now, and it's meaningful. He has a reason to get up in the mornings, and if that reason is because it's a habit by now, then that's good enough for him. Steve gets up and goes running, and then he eats something and showers, and so what if his apartment looks a little bare?

Maybe Steve can't bring himself to fill it up because that will only emphasize the things and people who can no longer be there to share the space with him.

Whatever the reason, Steve likes his apartment just fine as it is, and he doesn't see a need to fill it with useless stuff. Apparently, everyone else disagrees, though. When Natasha shows up the next day and says that the two of them are going shopping, he's not even surprised.

Steve doesn't drag his feet. He even has a fun time debating paintings and knickknacks and furniture with Natasha, who is of course very knowledgeable about this century's trends but less so about what Steve considers acceptable, and no, Natasha, Steve is not getting that coffee table - it's hideous.

At the end of the day, Steve's had several things delivered to his apartment that he could have carried there himself if Natasha had let him waste the time. She helps him arrange everything to her satisfaction, and then she kisses his cheek before she leaves him to bask in his 'no longer dismal-looking' apartment, in her words.

It's… nice. Not so bad. Not something that Steve would have done on his own, and not really something that he's enthusiastic about even now, but he can live with a decorated apartment. Steve stretches out on his new couch that actually fits his body, and that's pretty great. He picks up a book that was an impulse buy earlier today and starts reading, and tries to ignore the echoes all around him - of love and laughter and family - and the silence that remains.

He'll get used to it. Steve's had to get used to a lot of things lately. He can do this. It's not like he has any other choice, after all.


End file.
